Business pushes back on Dartmouth's shopping cart fines
DARTMOUTH, Mass. (WJAR) — Officials in Dartmouth want to keep their streets clean so the town removes abandoned shopping carts that are often left along Route 6 and in other areas.
The town then fines retailers $100 for each one. So far, it has cost major retailers tens of thousands of dollars.
Glide Rite, which supplies stores like Walmart and Target with shopping carts, said it’s fed up with the town's fine structure and has hired its own shopping cart grabber in Dartmouth.
Al Whalen spends at least three days of out of the week picking up carts along a pre-designated route which he finds on his app and then he returns them to the correct store.
"It's pretty high tech and we're trying to make light of the problem and take care of it," Whalen told NBC 10 News.
Whalen says he runs his route and finds at least five carts a day, which would otherwise have resulted in $500 in fines.
A spokesman for Glide Rite tells NBC 10 he believes the looming fines are driving other businesses out.
They say they would prefer to work with the town like they do all across the country.
"Glide Rite does this at about 600 locations nationwide so it's not just here, Dartmouth isn't the only place it's a problem, it's all over the place," said Whalen.
Whalen said his goal is the same as the town, which is to keep the streets of Dartmouth clean.
He just wishes they would go about it differently.
"It would be nice if they could just give us a heads up, we'll work with them, we'll take care of the problem," he said.
NBC 10 reached out to Walmart, Target, and town officials today, but has not heard back.
Earlier this week, Dartmouth officials told NBC 10 they intend to keep their enforcement in place for the time being.